National Theatre at Home: Andrea Levy's Small Island and Terence Rattigan's The Deep Blue Sea among final free streams

1/25
Zoe Paskett11 June 2020

Andrea Levy’s Small Island, Terence Rattigan’s The Deep Blue Sea and Lorraine Hansberry’s Les Blancs are among the last five plays to be streamed online by the National Theatre.

The Bridge Theatre’s acclaimed production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, starring Gwendoline Christie, and Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus starring Lucian Msamati will also be available to watch.

Helen Edmundson’s epic adaptation of Levy’s book from 2019 will be streamed first, following on from tonight’s broadcast of The Madness of King George III. Leah Harvey, Gershwyn Eustace Jr and Aisling Loftus star in the production, which traces a story from Jamaica to Britain throughout the Second World War to the HMT Empire Windrush docking on UK shores. The week-long stream will coincide with Windrush Day on June 22.

Nicholas Hytner’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, with Christie, David Moorst, Oliver Chris and Hammed Animashaun, will stream the following week (June 25), followed by Yaël Farber’s production of Hansberry’s final play Les Blancs, which explores the legacy of colonialism in Africa and its effect on a family (July 2).

Helen McCrory’s celebrated performance in The Deep Blue Sea follows on July 9, heralded as one of the greatest female roles in contemporary drama, and Michael Longhurst’s decadent production of Amadeus wraps things up on July 16, with Msamati playing Salieri to Adam Gillen’s upstart Mozart.

These are the final shows and their dates:

  • Small Island, June 18

  • A Midsummer Night’s Dream, June 25

  • Les Blancs, July 2

  • The Deep Blue Sea, July 9

  • Amadeus, July 16

National Theatre dramaturg Ola Animashawun will be curating content surrounding the Small Island and Les Blancs screenings that explores the plays within the context of current discussions around race and Black Lives Matter.

The series of livestreams began in May with One Man Two Guvnors, with a different show broadcast every Thursday. While the streams are free to watch, viewers can make a donation to the National Theatre and other participating theatres to support them while they remain impacted by closures forced by the coronavirus pandemic.

Executive Director Lisa Burger said: “During what has been such an isolating time for many people right across the world it has been wonderful to be able to share these productions with both new and existing audiences, and to have the opportunity to showcase the exceptional creative talent working in our industry.”

Although these are the final free broadcasts in the series, Burger said that the National Theatre at Home initiative will continue with details being announced soon.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in